


Skips A Beat

by MockingBlue (RoyalSeal)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, F/M, some medical issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 01:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3709711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyalSeal/pseuds/MockingBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since the lightning strike, Barry’s heart has seemed prone to skipping, but only when Iris is around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skips A Beat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hawwkgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawwkgirl/gifts).



When he sees her in Jitters, his heart skips a beat.

She’s just so beautiful. She’s so overjoyed by the sight of him. She’s missed him so much, and, though he knows it’s selfish, it feels really  _good_  to know that she missed him.

“I watched you die, Barry.” She says breathlessly, after a brief, excited, overwhelmed few words are exchanged.“You kept dying, your heart kept stopping…”

He takes her hand in his, feeling the flutter of his heartbeat in his wrist as the thrill that comes with touching her rushes through him. Gently, he places her hand on his chest, over his heart, and lets her feel the steady thrumming beneath his skin and bones. “It’s still beating.” He tells her, and he feels a little giddy, light headed, even.

“Feels really fast.” She replies, concern lighting in her eyes. She looks like she’s about to say something else, but then a waitress behind her drops a tray and he watches everything happen in slow motion, sees the movements of the world drop to a sluggish pace, and then, as suddenly as it came, it disappears and everything returns to normal.

“You okay Tracy?” Iris asks to her fellow server, her hand still resting on Barry’s chest. Whatever she was about to say to Barry is forgotten.

—-

When he sees her with Eddie, his heart skips a beat.

She’s just so happy, with her dark hands on the other man’s pale face, wearing a smile meant just for him. Barry can’t deny that the man’s good looking, but he hadn’t considered that Iris might be in a relationship. The world had moved so fast around him; what had seemed like one night had actually been nine months for everyone else. Eddie smiles at her the way Barry always wanted to smile at her, like she’s his security, his clarity, his everything. It makes Barry feel light headed again.

And then she looks up, and her eyes meet Barry’s, and he feels a literal pain in his chest, sharp, deep, and piercing.

She’s right. His heart does feel really fast.

—–

When she tells him she’s moving in with Eddie, his heart skips a beat.

Two beats.

He has to breathe in deeply to swallow the tiny pain in his chest, a pain that he’s become used to since waking from the coma.

“You guys are moving pretty fast.” He says, wheeling his chair over to his table, suddenly feeling dizzy, in need of a surface to lean on, and something to distract his focus. He needs to hold something in his hands and look away from her beautiful eyes before the words that burn on his lips come tumbling out.

“Well, it’s been a year.” She replies, and for a moment, he’s confused. It’s been three months right? But no, it’s only been three months for  _him_. Three months since the world sped up, left him in the dust, then woke him rudely and gave him super speed, as though taunting him with the illusion of catching up to what he’d lost.

It’s been a year. Iris was without him for a year and she  _thrived_.

So when she brings up that Eddie thinks that Barry might like her, he pushes past the ever growing pain in his heart, and lies through his teeth. “I mean, Eddie’s wrong.” He tells her.

She believes him.

It’s surprisingly hard to stay alert after she leaves. He feels so weak and dizzy. But then the Man in Yellow – The Reverse Flash – appears, and he’s distracted enough to ignore it.

He tells Iris about his real feelings, and though he wasn’t fast enough, it feels good to stop lying to her about at least  _one_  thing. It’s like a literal weight has been lifted from his chest, though his eyes sting for a long time, and the hopeless feeling is only replaced by complacency.

But it’s a start. It’s something.

The pain in his chest still comes and goes, but it’s small enough that it doesn’t really bother him. He suppresses it, ignores it, distracts from it by training, going for drinks with Cisco and Caitlin, by dating Linda for a little while (he notices that spicy foods seem to dull the pain even further). He catches bad guys and tests his limits. He works hard, so hard it leaves him breathless.

Sometimes he’s a little dizzy after a run. Sometimes he comes home and wakes up on the couch with no idea how he got there. After effects of all that adrenaline and fear, probably. Occasionally, his heartbeat flutters a little. Sometimes it sounds strange, making a  _dip-dop dip-dop_  noise instead of its usual  _ba-dum ba-dum_. But it never lasts long. It’s only stress, it’s only adrenaline, it’s only his super speed.

There’s a minute where he thinks his sickly thudding heart is going to burst out of his chest, and that’s when Iris’ lips are pressed against his, and his hands are cupped against her soft, cool skin, his fingers in her hair. He can feel her heartbeat, rhythmic and strong, overpowering his own erratic and wild heart.

He feels his heart jolt when he’s forced to leave her. It makes him catch his breath for a moment, but he has a city to save. He has Eddie to save. He has Caitlin and Cisco to save. He has his dad to save. He has Joe to save.

He has  _Iris_  to save.

And he does.

He runs so fast that he breaks time. He catches up and then overtakes his past. Now  _he’s_ kissed Iris, pressed his hands against her beautiful cheeks, caught his fingers in her warm hair, but  _she’s_  never felt the earnestness of his touch, never let his passionate fingers entwine in her hair, never let him kiss her, and she’s certainly never touched her lips to his.

It drives him a little crazy.

The feeling of lightheadedness becomes constant, and there’s some kind of perpetual headache throbbing in the back of his head. He invites Iris out for lunch and babbles something about how they should “…stop thinking and start  _doing_.” It earns him her righteous anger and a square punch on the cheek from Eddie. Caitlin manages to smooth things over with a glib lie about “lightning psychosis”, and, if he’s honest, he’s starting to think that might not be too far from the truth, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on that right now.

Fastest man on earth, and he doesn’t have  _time_. The irony isn’t lost on him.

Then one day, Iris calls him. She sounds breathless and giddy, and his heart makes a weak leap in his chest. “Barry, can…can we meet at home, please? I really need to talk to you.”

Everything’s bright and beautiful as he dashes to the place they all call home, the place where they grew up. The sun is shining with so much hope he has to squint in order to see. He’s so excited he has to clutch at the railing of the stairs to get up to the front door.

The second he’s in the house, Iris bounces up to greet him. “Barry!” She exclaims excitedly, grabbing him and wrapping him in a massive hug. She pauses a moment. “Your heart feels really fast.”

He laughs breathlessly. “No more than usual. You said you needed to talk about something, though? What was it?”

She grins broadly, and pulls him over to the couch, forcefully dragging him down to sit next to her. He has to take a moment to shake his vision clear of the spots that suddenly form before his eyes; he’s used to sitting down much more slowly. But it’s a small shake, and he makes sure Iris doesn’t notice.

“Well…um…” She giggles, and tucks her hair behind her ear. “I…well, look.” From beneath her sweater, she pulls out the chain on which hangs the replica of her mother’s ring, the ring that Barry bought her for Christmas nearly five months ago. Beside the familiar gold band hangs a shiny new ring, one with a dark blue stone. Iris rubs her fingers over both rings as Barry watches, waiting for her to explain.

“I don’t…what’s…”

“This one.” She says, holding up the new ring and letting the one he bought her dangle again. “It…Eddie bought it for me. He proposed, and I…think I’m going to say yes.”

When he sees her smile, Barry’s heart skips three beats.

_One…_

_Two…_

_Three…_

The beat that follows is too weak to compensate for the missed beats. Is he being blinded by her smile? Why is everything so bright? It hurts to look at her. It hurts to breathe. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

Everything’s white. As white as it was the second he was struck by lightning and had his whole world thrown upside down and inside out, and then was left behind in darkness as it went speeding ahead in him, tossing him scraps of speed to give him some vain hope of catching up.

His heart skips a beat. Skips every other beat.

_Lightning._

_Speed._

_Heart._

_Hurts._

_Iris._


End file.
